DRW50

Season 3 was one of my favorite seasons. It's a transitional season, and has a number of serialized stories, but yes, there were more self-contained episodes. I guess the most memorable is the haunted house one. Another was about a troubled little girl Valene briefly looks after, and one involved Karen's ex-boyfriend, who believed he was Diana's father. Season 3 also had Karen's brother Joe, who I really liked and was disappointed when he left and was never mentioned again. My favorite of the self-contained episodes was Silver Shadows, where Abby is dating a man but begins to neglect that relationship because she meets a rich, senile old man who notices her because of her resemblance to his late wife. She begins to basically act as his wife, hoping that when he dies, he will leave his money to her. I'll just say that the "win" is a hollow victory. She also loses her boyfriend to Karen. The last scene is one of my favorite Abby scenes -- she's standing in front of the mirror, every reason to feel angry or defeated, but she puts on the '20s style flapper cap that the old man's wife used to wear, and she smiles, somewhat wistfully.

I remember that John Pleshette interview where he ripped into the Latham/Lechowicks. I got the sense he wasn't exactly a nice guy, but I appreciated his candor. Richard Avery was such a weak, pathetic man, but I never could hate him, because of Pleshette's work. He was phenomenal and never got enough credit for it. I still remember his goodbye scenes, they were very moving. And the breakdown episode was also moving. Of course, Richard got the last laugh. He was remarried, and happy, while poor Laura died alone Did anyone else get freaked out about how Jason Avery never aged?

I guess that was part of the excitement of soaps then, whereas now soaps keep the same people and get progressively more boring and unwatchable. I think of LOL's cancellation as a mercy since they never would have survived the Internet years without being hounded to death. Those poor viewers. "You're watching LOL?? Is the full title LMAO?"

Oh you'd already found those? I'm sorry. I think it's the stripped-down nature of these scenes which makes them harrowing. No big music or lengthy pauses. The part where Ann realizes that Jennifer is hearing voices is terrifying. I'd love to see some 70s Search. I remember our great inspiration Schemering talking about the "multi-tiered" approach Search used for some of that decade. It sounded very good.

I'm still surprised at how stark this is for a soap. Very good acting from both ladies.

I guess the question is did Stacey love Bradley enough to not let him fall apart over facing these charges? She didn't. If she did then she would have confessed when he became a suspect. The problem is that there was no tension or uncertainty or remorse in Stacey over these past few months. The only time she seemed worried was about the baby being Archie's, and occasionally about Bradley. Otherwise she was planning her wedding, she was having fun with Becca. I think she came across as shallow and as not caring about Bradley as much as I would hope she would have. I put that down to bad writing, as they sacrificed her character to a degree for the "shock" reveal. I put that down to bad, lazy writing. The show was too lazy to ever give him a purpose (beyond dupe for various women). They ignored his relationship with Max until recently and only cared about him when it was time for a reunion with Stacey. Just as the show has never bothered to write for Jack as anything other than a penis until recently. The story with Syd and Noah was ridiculous and I do not believe he would have just dumped them that way. More plot over character. The way he was with Becca was more lazy writing, as he suddenly became very openly rude to her so she would call the police. With that said, I think he was nice to even put up with her as long as he did, given how possessive she is of a woman she barely knows. I'm not sure if they are going to do anything with her beyond plot device. The actress is OK. Not the best, but perhaps she will grow into the role. She's better than awful Lucy, Leon, Zsa Zsa, et al. I just hope they know what to do with her. Chelsea has been on the show 4 years and they still don't bother.

Adam Woodyatt interview. http://www.walfordweb.co.uk/item.php?id=2232 http://www.walfordweb.co.uk/item.php?id=2233

Dennis had bad blood with local mobster Johnny Allen. Johnny told Sharon that if she did not get Dennis and leave town, then Dennis would die. Sharon's ex Phil, who wasn't a big fan of Dennis himself, told Dennis about this threat. Dennis beat Johnny to a pulp. Johnny then paid a thug, Danny Moon, to kill Dennis. There was a very good scene at the funeral, where Sharon lost it completely, and Phil told Peggy what had happened and how he wanted to tell Sharon the truth. Peggy told him that would destroy Sharon and to never let her know what he'd done. And he never did.

I can't remember who mentioned the BB3 special but I did think it was good, for the most part. I felt sorry for Charlie Clements, as he seemed very upset the whole time. He said elsewhere that he only left the show because he was tired of being recognized. It seemed like he really loved the place and the people there. I'm really going to miss Bradley. Over and over, any man on a soap who does not act like a jackass is labeled "boring," or "weak," but Bradley was such a great character, and kind and supportive men are something that are few and far between on soaps. I am dreading his funeral, especially since The worst Eastenders death for me was Dennis, mostly because of Sharon. I still don't understand how Letitia Dean didn't get anything for those performances. I think it was too much for people who only want to see a few tears and a wistful smile. She was extremely raw and watching her was just agony, especially when she began clawing at her face as Dot had to ask her to stop, and when she begged Phil to tell her how she was going to live without Dennis. It still stays with me.

Yeah, they did for a few years. I think they broke up because of Strictly Come Dancing.

There were some insinuations, but since they never actually went there, I thought the story was more about control and mental abuse. Instead of giving her this motivation at a time when she needed it (since she has spent a year wandering around like a madwoman repeating endless scenes of "I want a baby!" and "He killed my daughter!!", with zero attempts to actually build her character), they tack it on in the live episode where it will not be properly dealt with and when they need people to have more reason to believe Archie raped Stacey. That's why I seriously wonder whether or not they planned for Archie to have raped Ronnie. With the weird pacing on this show who knows. If she had gone to the police then Bradley wouldn't have been a suspect. Stacey let Bradley take the blame all while he had no idea she was the killer. All this time Bradley was falling apart and she was having fun with Becca, planning this wedding. There was never any real moment where I saw her as hiding this secret. That's one of the reasons I think not having the actor find out until the night of the live episode was not a great idea. I can't see them writing Stacey out either but I'm not sure where they're going to go with her now because Bradley was the love of her life and she did that to him and probably won't face any punishment (aside from the cosmic punishment of him dying I guess). She's also had so many breakdowns and misery in such a short time, like Ronnie, that eventually it becomes overkill. They used to be able to balance that out better -- Kathy and Pauline and Sharon and the other women who were often miserable sometimes still had laughs and happy periods of time. I like Ryan more these days but I don't know if there's a lot of story there with the baby. He's sort of a forgettable character. I guess it depends on the writing.

That's huge! Shows what happens when a network actively promotes and encourages a soap. And it halts some of the decline of soaps in the UK. Santer is going to get all kinds of offers now that he's left Eastenders. I don't envy Bryan Kirkwood.

Judging by the way he put his fingers in his mouth, Jake Wood agrees with you. I did think it was silly. Thankfully we had some advance warning. I'm glad the tabloids are there for that. If I didn't know we'd have these stupid moments like Tanya burying Max alive or Nick blowing up the cafe I'd think someone just lost a bet right before taping.

I loved her on Soap and Benson. I wish her GL run was available. Wasn't there something about Roger making a move on her and she said no but she left her white gloves behind? She was also with Ed wasn't she? It's something that she was on GL for that many years. She was also the first Tracy on AW right?

I wonder if they will write Stacey out. All they do with her is pile on the misery, but now, she has caused Bradley's death, in that she knew all along she had killed Archie yet she let him become a prime suspect, she was out clubbing and laughing while he was having a breakdown, she let him panic for months, leading to his death. I just don't know where this character can go after this. You can't get much more miserable or devastated than this, and they've ripped a lot of the soul out of the character. If she could do that to Bradley than she would do it to anyone.

I liked Nicole too. I think they got rid of her because they got rid of her whole family, aside from Russ, who was there for Mercedes, or the hunk factor. I wish they'd kept her around. I did love her exit, that she told Nancy, Sarah, and Hannah what lousy friends they were. That "friendship" sucked. Nancy and Sarah were only ever friends with the mirror.

Thanks for the articles. The NYT one is better than I expected, perhaps because they don't know that much about the show. I'm glad the usual cliches (it's so gritty, it's so depressing!) were kept to something of a minimum. Thank you for the live article too Sylph. I hate what they did to Archie. They have, in the space of a few months, made him into a rapist, and now someone who raped his own daughter. I don't believe that this was something which was initially built into his character, and they have not really explored any of the consequences of rape. It's just a plot device. When Kathy Beale was raped it was a huge and long-term impact on her life.

She was at the very, very end of Paper Dolls. Like in two episodes. That was also when they killed off boring Lloyd Bridges character.

I've never seen her CPW or FC work, although I guess nothing would have helped CPW. Nip/Tuck, boy that show went down the toilet.

I meant I wasn't sure if we should keep this for the lesser known soaps, but you're probably right.

I'd love to talk about Knots. I have been watching some of the early second season again (saw "Kristen" tonight -- who decided her entire story should be with fine ass but not all that exciting Kenny??). I was hoping we might be able to start individual threads for Knots, Dallas, and Dynasty, Falcon Crest, since those were such big shows. I agree with you about Paper Dolls. Mimi Rogers bored me to tears, and some of the storyline she had was awful. Wasn't there some awful and badly telegraphed miscarriage scene? I seem to remember her acting like an idiot and then she had a miscarriage. Terry didn't do a lot for me on that show, although that was partially down to her stories, like a stalking story that was telegraphed in episode after episode but never went anywhere. I remember having a bit of crush on Mimi's husband or someone else...perhaps Matthew Perry's father. He was married to boring Nancy Olson. Was it him or Mimi's husband who was a designer? What did you think of Lauren Hutton? To me she would have been too low-key for a primetime soap. It was on Soapnet for a few months, when they bothered to run old soaps. Thanks for the info on the cop show.

Did those shows make it to air? I don't think the problem with Paper Dolls was the amount of characters. It was that aside from Racine and one or two others most of the characters were dull. And they had that "Missing You" guy on too much.

Yeah, it was one of those shock value shows. I think those people went on to produce the Eyes of Tammy Faye. HBO also used to have America Undercover specials back then which were ahead of their time, like the one on workplace violence. Peter Paige definitely impressed as the years went on.

I always see Shelley on GSN reruns of Pyramid or Super Password and never know who she is. She's like that SNL sketch with Jane Curtin as Rula Lenska.

I'd never seen the original QAF, minus a clip of a scene with Aden Gillen and Chris...blanking on the last name, sorry; the scene aired on one of those LOOK AT THIS SHOCKING PROGRAM WHICH AIRS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY!! specials HBO used to run back when they weren't so far up their own ass. Still, I was annoyed by the early publicity for the show, which kept on about how it was so brave and daring. And then Hal Sparks made some stupid comments which bothered me. I still watched but wasn't really all that impressed. My big problems were I didn't care for the casting of Brian or Justin, the actors didn't impress me and I didn't see any chemistry and I didn't care about their relationship (Justin seemed to pout or smirk in every scene). But certainly that was not a majority opinion and I realize a lot of people loved Brian/Justin and they kept the show going. I mostly enjoyed Ben/Mike and their stories. There were some benefits to moving to a more serious format but even though the first season wasn't great I thought that side was more of their strength. Like when they had Mike's boring doctor boyfriend do a striptease at the Babylon to prove to Mike that he wasn't uptight. That was a fun way to advance a story. I liked those little moments and ignored the cliched stories. Later on the show had less and less of those and had to rely on the handful of stories they did which weren't overly preachy. I think my favorite episodes were the ones where Brian worked for and ultimately exposed a bigot, and then at the end everyone slow-danced to "Chiqudita." Yeah, they did a decent job on Leap Years of showing a bisexual character. I thought the guy who played him was wooden and dull, but he's gone on to a lot. Garret Dilahunt. I think he was on Deadwood, and played Jesus on Book of Daniel. I remember those Showtime shows from back then -- Chris Isaak Show, Going to California, Leap Years. None of which are ever shown again or even out on DVD, I believe. A lot of Showtime stuff vanishes, yet the same reruns of Love Street have aired for over 15 years...